BTS member RM marked the 2021 BTS Festa — the annual celebration tied to the anniversary of the group’s debut release — with a new solo song titled “Bicycle.”
The two-week event had scheduled something mysteriously called “Bicycle” for June 7th, leading to speculation that a new song could be on the way. When Monday arrived in South Korea, BTS’ social media revealed the track, which was “produced, written and arranged” by RM alongside John Eun.
2021 #BTS FESTA Timeline#2021BTSFESTA #우리의축제시작 #FESTAisComing #BTS8thAnniversary pic.twitter.com/vOxZu2MKhn
— BTS_official (@bts_bighit) May 28, 2021
“Bicycle” follows Friday’s release of a pair of new remixes (“Sweeter” and “Cooler”) dedicated to BTS’ latest single “Butter,” the group’s second English-language song following their hit “Dynamite.”
This year’s BTS Festa will culminate June 13th and 14th with a special two-day online streaming event, Muster Sowoozoo, to celebrate their eighth anniversary.
In an interview as part of Rolling Stone’s recent BTS cover story, RM talked about his hip-hop influences, performing at the Grammys and the evolving landscape of K-pop.
“Somebody could say that K-pop is for Koreans who sing a Korean song. That could be K-pop. But what about ‘Dynamite’? We sing the song in English. But we’re all Koreans, so somebody may say it’s a K-pop song. Or they may say it’s just a pop song, because it’s in English,” RM said.
“But we don’t actually really care about whether people see us as inside or outside K-pop. The important fact is that we’re all Koreans, and we’re singing a pop song. So that’s the reason why we said that our genre is just BTS. That debate is very important for the music industry, but it doesn’t mean very much for us members.”